1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to personal communication systems, and more particularly to electronic audio connection systems that enable two or more geographically separated physical spaces to interact socially within a shared audio space.
2. Description of the Related Art
Social reasons are the primary motivation for both intra-household (room to room) and inter-household (house to house) aural communication. For purposes of inter-household communication, households are primarily linked to one another by telephones and by telephone-extension devices such as answering machines. Related technologies include speaker-telephones. For purposes of intra-household communication, baby monitors enable parents to eavesdrop on their resting children from another room and intercoms enable people to talk room-to-room.
Ongoing contact with significant others is a fundamental human need not fully met by current household technologies. First, there is no technological support for a household to have continuous background awareness of distant households that it cares about, in the way that it has some ongoing awareness of physically neighboring households (e.g., by noticing a car is in the driveway, a lighted window, or muffled sounds of a conversation). Such awareness would allow conversations to take place opportunistically that currently do not take place, and might allow certain currently unwanted conversations to be avoided if such background awareness was sufficient for feeling xe2x80x9cin touch.xe2x80x9d
The telephone (currently the primary technological support for remote conversations) embodies a model for initiating and disengaging from social interaction that is rarely found in everyday life. Disregarding for the moment non-basic elements such as busy signals, answering machines, caller-ID, etc., the telephone provides three states: disconnected, ringing, and connected. The model of social interaction created is akin to that created by a windowless room with a closed, locked, and soundproof door. Callers are forced to initiate interaction by knocking (ringing), without any advance indication of the callee""s situation within.
Similarly, the callee is forced to decide whether to unlock and open the door with very limited information (even more limited in the telephone case, as at least a knock can have a distinctive rhythm). Once unlocked and thrown open, the conversational partners confront each other at close range, with little ability to adjust social distance to a mutually desired level. Conversations end, with little subtlety or room for re-engagement, by shutting the door and returning to an entirely disengaged state. People have adapted to this model remarkably well, but a technology that offers a more flexible mutually negotiated approach would be highly desirable.
There are, of course, a number of conversational devices currently available for remote social interactions including telephones, videophones, online xe2x80x9cchatxe2x80x9d and audio/video-conferencing systems, and caller-ID devices. However, the production of high-tech communication devices for the home is an emerging field. For example, there has been some research moving away from PC-based applications towards small dedicated appliances designed to fit functionally and aesthetically into the home that can provide some form of remote social interaction.
The term xe2x80x9cmedia spacexe2x80x9d refers to the linking of a number of physically separated spaces to create a larger xe2x80x9cvirtual spacexe2x80x9d for communication between various individuals. Researchers have noticed that it is very difficult to document an objective gain from use of media spaces in workplaces, but also that the users nevertheless were unanimous about the usefulness of these systems
A stated advantage is the social awareness that is provided and which may be conducive to deciding when direct communication would be appropriate. The awareness issue is sometimes refereed to as the support for background communication, see for instance William Buxton""s GI (Graphical Interface) ""95-paper about foreground and background.
The present invention comprises a number of solutions for the aforementioned problems, which characteristically take the form of easy-to-use household communication appliances. These xe2x80x9cappliancesxe2x80x9d are fairly termed electronic audio connection systems, for they enable geographically separate physical spaces to share a single audio space. The appliances of the present invention are meant to complement existing household technologies (e.g. personal computers or PCs), rather than to replace them. They are primarily conceived of as being stand-alone appliances to best fit their form to their function, and to appeal to consumers who do not have or want PCs, but at least some could be sold in an alternative version as a software application.
More particularly, the present invention comprises a set of easy-to-use consumer devices for lightweight social awareness and/or conversation between households of friends or family members or similar applications. The family of devices/capabilities (and related services) that the present invention contemplates focus on both home-to-home and room-to-room social communication range. This aural communication may be supplemented through simple feedback devices, buttons and timing circuitry that aid in the negotiation surrounding the sharing of an audio space. Lightweight, ephemeral connections and communication characterize them with friends and family. The devices of the present invention are less intrusive and simpler than a telephone, hands-free and high quality, yet more intimate and immediate than email.
Appropriately configured, an electronic audio connection system of the present invention conveys the experience of sharing a room with several involved parties. Speech enhancement and speech emphasis processing functions ensure parties perceive the speech captured in the audio signals, typically the most important portion of the captured audio signals. To capture audio signals, each space is provided a plurality of microphones arranged in that space so that the sum audio signal captured by the microphones enables the creation of a sharable audio space. Each separate physical space transmits its captured audio signals to a central server via a bi-directional data communications medium. The central server processes the summed audio signals and in turn transmits playable audio signals to each separate physical space. Speakers located in each separate physical space aurally transmit the playable audio signals. This creates an audio space shared by each of the active separate physical spaces.